Quotes from Patrick Collison

One phrase we use at Stripe is, 'Most tech companies are building cars. Stripe is building roads.'

Silicon Valley does not breed great technology. Instead, the smartest people from around the world tend to move to Silicon Valley.

In 2007, there weren't any other accelerators, at least that I was aware of. We were almost the prototypical Y Combinator founders: We were highly technical but had never done a startup before. We also didn't know anyone in the Valley - investors, other entrepreneurs, potential hires. YC seemed like a great way to bootstrap that network.

There is really an issue in Silicon Valley with companies getting a bit ahead of themselves in terms of their own self-perception of their own success.

I think that Stripe generally is comprised of the kind of people who believe in technology or are kind of optimistic about its effect and want to have whatever future it's leading to happen.

There is a higher degree of operational excellence and rigor demanded of Stripe than of most companies.

What interests us in Stripe is the idea that there could much more commerce happening on the Internet.

Our goal definitely isn't to sell Stripe.

At most large companies, what is locally optimal for you is very frequently not what is globally optimal for the company.

If you're building a consumer app, you're necessarily coupled to the intrinsic time cycle of human fashion in that it's a fashion-driven space, and we see that in the cycle of these various apps. I think for infrastructure that that just naturally tends to play out over a longer time horizon.